Why "NoFollow" Certain Pages?

[TeamPlayer]

I read this earlier today elsewhere.

Next, decide what to do with nonessential links. In an approach known as "PageRank sculpting," two options are to either remove or nofollow them. The best candidates for these treatments include pages about terms and conditions, legal notices, privacy policies. Taking care of them may improve your SEO.

Question, why would pages such as `privacy` say be better of with `nofollow` to help SEO?

[temi]

TeamPlayer, what context was this quote taken from? I cannot see any SEO benefits from adding nofollow to those pages but perhaps, it one know more about the context the quote was taken from, it may be possible to guess why the author things its a good idea to add not follow to such pages.

[TeamPlayer]

Temi, it was sent to me as part of a `tips` newsletter by a search engine I`m with. It was just trying to advise members on possible improvements to help with SEO.

[temi]

Thanks for that info, I could be wrong but I cannot see how doing that would improve SEO ranking.

[Bagi Zoltán]

I belive that the biggest problem with the story you posted above is the fact adding nofollow to pages which has nothing to do with canonical issues is the typical sign of PageRank addiction which is a really bad attitude

[rhyswynne]

Maybe I can see the logic behind it.

With a lot of these sorts of pages, there is a legal requirement (particularly for legal or governmental sites) to write them in a certain way. Often there's little room for manouver for what you can and can't say. Less scrupulous designers copy and paste them from other sites, changing the names. This can be seen as duplicate content, so you could be hit from it.

That's my interpretation of it, anyway.

[TeamPlayer]

Originally Posted by rhyswynne

Maybe I can see the logic behind it.

With a lot of these sorts of pages, there is a legal requirement (particularly for legal or governmental sites) to write them in a certain way. Often there's little room for manouver for what you can and can't say. Less scrupulous designers copy and paste them from other sites, changing the names. This can be seen as duplicate content, so you could be hit from it.

That's my interpretation of it, anyway.

Interesting theory, one I hadn`t thought of. I suppose by necessity the basic format of such kinds of pages must be fairly similar. I can`t recall seeing many, if any, legal type pages come up in Search Engine results. That being the case, a `nofollow` can`t do any harm, can it?